The president has promised to give universities more autonomy, impose tougher sentences on repeat offenders, tighten immigration, make labour laws more flexible and reduce taxation.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the result gave Mr Sarkozy a strong mandate to introduce his reforms.

"We are going to engage in renewal, we are going to experiment with new ideas, we are going to enhance the status of work, we are going to encourage talent and innovation, and we are going to free ourselves from the defeatism which is suffocating the republic," he said.

The UMP and its allies' majority is smaller than the 359 seats they held in the previous parliament, when Jacques Chirac was president.

Socialists' relief

The number of seats held by the Socialists and their allies was up from 149 in the previous assembly.

Despite the French media's much-vaunted respect for the private lives of politicians, the papers are full of the split-up